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Towards a socialist strategy in South Africa

By Dale T. McKinley (In conjunction with Keith Griffler)

‘Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed if it is not faced’ – James Baldwin Continued Strategic Impasse

The left in South Africa, eight years in to the post-apartheid era, needs to face a stark reality – there does not exist a socialist strategy that has the potential to fundamentally challenge, and change, South African capitalism.

From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, the organisational and political state and direction of mass-based socialist (class) struggle was very much on the left agenda. There existed an intellectual willingness, and much practical activity, directed to forging a socialist strategy that would be able to politicise and organise those class struggles towards a possible socialist future. Unfortunately for the left, and for the millions of South African workers, the broader urban and rural working class and youth, the revolutionary promise of that period has foundered, to a large degree, upon the rocks of a strategic sterility amongst South African socialists. While struggles against the intensified ravages of global and South African capitalism have continued, these have taken place in spite of the strategic impasse that South African socialists have been wallowing in for the last few years.

What we now find in South Africa is the predominance of issue-oriented social and political struggles such as those that focus on HIV-AIDs, privatization and the anti-World Bank/IMF campaign. While these struggles are, in and of themselves, necessary and important, they contain little in the way of grappling with the demands, and actual forging, of a meaningful socialist strategy that has the potential to radically change the organisational and political face of socialist struggle in South Africa (and implicitly Southern Africa). Simply put, socialist politics in South Africa has become politically balkanized, and to a lesser extent, strategically de-classed.

What this has led to is the effective institutionalisation of an anti-politics, grounded in an essentially reactive and issue-based strategic framework as the best means to confront capitalism as well as to mobilise the ‘mass’. While this kind of politics can, and does, provide an ongoing vehicle for socialist activism, it can only go so far. It is essentially a defensive politics and while degrees of such have been necessary, there is no ideological/political or organisational basis from which to move onto the offensive. As such, the South African left has been taken with continually fighting rearguard battles. This has, in turn, seriously obscured seeing (and acting upon) the possibilities for those implicitly anti-capitalist battles to give birth to more explicitly socialist politics/class struggle and organisational forms that have the potential to contest capitalist power on a terrain and on terms that are not reflective of the demands and needs of capitalism itself.

The question that all socialists in South Africa need to honestly ask themselves in the contemporary period is whether or not they still believe in the possibilities of actually overthrowing capitalism. This is not a rhetorical question or a meaningless ideological litmus test. There is simply no subjective basis for claims to socialist politics if the struggles that take place continue to be directed into a strategic cul-de-sac whereby, once a certain critical political ‘mass presence’ has been achieved, the strategic focus becomes beating the capitalists at their own game and on a ‘playing field’ tailored by, and for, them (e.g., policy changes, contesting elections). Just like the national liberation movements of the past, stated ‘tactics’ become, whether intentional or not, the strategy and any accompanying organisational form merely reflects the demands of this strategic choice.

On the other hand, the last several decades of socialist politics in South Africa and globally, has also shown, quite clearly, that the strategic sureties of a classical vanguardist socialism have failed, precisely because the presumed class consciousness to which such a politics strives has proven to be historically fundamentally flawed. For those in need of confirmation, we only have to look at the consistent crisis of socialism, of the working class movement, that is now almost a century old. The present crisis of socialist politics is much more than simply a question of the recent ‘collapse of communism’. At it’s core, it has to do with preconceived and prefigured notions of the ‘working class’ itself and a parallel mode of strategic thinking that fetishises a stagiest conceptualisation of an ever-expanding productive base as the prerequisite for any fundamental, change in socio-political relations towards socialism. In South Africa (as elsewhere), attempts to merely reconstruct the historically determined forms of vanguards have led, and will continue to lead, straight into sectarianism of various sorts. Indeed, a key part of the present strategic impasse is that there is no readymade historical form for a socialist politics grounded in a dominant strategic vision/framework such as existed with 19th century Marxism.

In South Africa over the last several years then, most socialists have tended to either gravitate towards an issue-based, anti-politics (often strategically conceptualised as a struggle for ‘revolutionary reforms’) or to seek refuge in the arms of a classical vanguardist politics. Despite verbal gymnastics to the contrary, socialist organisational forms and the resultant politics flowing from them have continued to be predominately conceived as, and cast in terms of, a ‘mass’ versus ‘vanguard’ framework. More specifically, the strategic ‘debate’ emanating from these approaches has tended to revolve around the possible formation of a socialist ‘workers party’ (usually perceived as being borne out of the womb of a COSATU that breaks, politically, from the ANC/SACP ‘Alliance’) and to a lesser extent, the efficacy of politically independent grassroots/community struggles entering the realm of electoral politics as a means to contest the capitalist policies of the governing ‘Alliance’.

The problem with this present state of socialist politics in South Africa is that an unnecessary strategic dichotomy has – whether intentional or not - been erected between socialist-inspired mass struggle/action and the need and necessity for a socialist organisational form to give politically strategic expression to such struggles.

Moving beyond the impasse

The main, and immediate, challenge for socialists in South Africa is to put forward the basics of a strategic framework in which the forging of a socialist organisational form derives both meaning and content from those struggles emanating from both the organised working class and the grassroots/community level. Historically, a large number of socialists have never met this challenge precisely because the strategic framework adopted has assumed the socio-political character of those struggles (and thus, the ‘consciousness’ of those doing the struggling), as the basis for a politically predetermined organisational form. The all too evident result has been a marked failure to capture the political imagination of those most oppressed under capitalism and thus to generally limit consequent struggle to narrowly defined understandings of production-related socio-political relations.

We are now in an ‘epoch’ in South Africa, and in many other places, globally, in which those struggles are increasingly, and necessarily, framed by an anti-capitalist spirit, if not content. While there continues to be both activist and popular confusion over what exactly is, and is not, capitalist, it is quite clear that concrete struggles against, for example, privatisation of the public sector and for socialised provision of housing, water and land are aimed at contesting capitalist relations of ownership and distribution.

Given that there also continues to be much confusion over what constitutes socialism, it is all the more imperative for those that consider themselves socialist, not only to catalyse such struggles through practical involvement and varying forms of political/ ideological impetus, but to win the idea, politically, that what is desperately needed (indeed demanded) is the organisational recognition and expression of such struggles as socialist. Meeting this challenge provides a potential means for overcoming the strategic ‘divide’ previously mentioned and moving beyond what has become a stale and misdirected ‘debate’ in South Africa around a ‘workers party’.

Since the late 1980s, there has been a widely held position among many South African socialists that the best possibility for a mass-based socialist organisational and political presence rests with the drive to convince COSATU generally, and workers more particularly, to break away from the political alliance with the ANC/SACP and consequently form itself/themselves into an ‘independent workers party’. The impetus towards such a workers party represents, in general terms, two distinct things: a) to some, a nostalgia, a harkening back to a simpler age when socialism was on the ascendancy and represented a real world political force (which it no longer does), and when workers parties were automatically assumed to be oppositional and socialist (which they no longer are). This is somewhat understandable, but not really helpful. Socialists cannot move forward when they can’t let go of the past; b) a realisation that past formulas (i.e., the age-old determination of the working class struggle) no longer apply and therefore a desire to move forward - the idea of a workers party representing the possibilities of an elusive socialist organisational form to grasp onto as opposed to accepting the corporatised and compromised political forms that now exist in South Africa, and to which the ANC/SACP have capitulated.

To the extent that it is the latter impetus that is dominant amongst socialists, the idea of a workers party is a positive one. However, what is most important in this regard is how socialists understand the political character and organisational sustainability of the present COSATU/ANC/SACP alliance and thus, the best strategic approach to moving socialist politics and class struggle forward. Unfortunately, the way in which many socialists have conceptualised the formation of a ‘workers’ party’ has been from the perspective that imagines a successful resolution at a COSATU Congress calling for a break with the ANC/SACP.

For all the ‘opposition’ noises emanating from the ranks of COSATU over the past several years, the closest the federation rank and file ever came to passing a resolution to break the alliance was over eight years ago (from a NUMSA resolution) – since then, affiliate resolutions (such as those from SAMWU) that have tried to raise this have not even come close to securing any kind of serious debate on the floor at successive Congresses. Instead, we have a litany of discussion documents and parts of resolutions that continue to raise the same ‘problems’ with the functioning of the alliance, endless calls for better political and ideological ‘understandings’ and practically, the use of limited strikes and mass marches designed to pressure the ANC/SACP to take COSATU seriously. This has continued to be the case in the face of an ANC/SACP that simply rolls with the occasional punches from COSATU (and to a much lesser extent, from the rest of the organised working class) and continues to energetically purse their overall strategic goal of accommodation with domestic and international capital whilst servicing their own elite needs and those of a small, but growing black bourgeoisie.

Despite this merry-go-round, it should be more than clear that the alliance ‘ties that bind’ are progressively weakening - not because of loud (but mostly meaningless) complaints made by the COSATU leadership, not because of occasional shows of ‘worker power’ through 1-2 day strikes and street marches (all of which are tightly controlled to have maximum propaganda effect but minimum political effect) – but because the political basis for the alliance is itself being undermined by the strategic primacy of the ANC/SACP’s pursuit of a deracialised capitalism (euphemistically referred to as the national democratic revolution).

The very basis, historically, for the maintenance of a sustainable political alliance between unions and (ostensibly progressive) political parties that have hold of state power is the parallel maintenance of both a politically malleable union leadership and expanding benefits for a meaningful threshold of unionised workers. On both counts, the situation of such an alliance in the South African context is already taking serious strain and there is absolutely no reason to believe that this will be turned around. The ANC/SACP has already gone as far as they can (given their strategic/ideological commitment to a deracialised capitalism - framed by GEAR) in relation to acceding to the basic demands of COSATU/organised labour (e.g., the Labour Relations Act, the Basic Conditions of Employment Act etc.) and even those gains are under threat of erosion.

What is now also happening is that the of all but the most highly paid unionised workers gains (in relation to their direct productive context) are being seriously off-set by the erosive effects of the ANC/SACP’s capitalist policies on workers’ (and their families – nuclear and extended) basic socio-economic existence – i.e., their total ‘social’ existence. This is particularly being felt in relation to the privatisation of the state and of public sector provision of basic socio-economic services and needs such as water and electricity.

Nonetheless, unionism is engrained politics is not. Thus, the continued hope that a majority in COSATU will come to the conclusion of the necessity to politically break from the ANC/SACP, is, to put it mildly, misplaced. What is therefore called for is a strategy that essentially forces unionised workers to respond, politically, to intensifying mass struggles from the very grassroots/community that they are also part of. As long as those struggles remain in the political shadows – i.e., in terms of their political militancy, their social reach and their potential to cause serious breaches in support for the ANC/SACP – unionised workers will feel little pressure to translate their own dissatisfaction with the political ‘delivery’ of the alliance with the ANC/SACP, into serious consideration of socialist political alternatives. What is needed is the (re) politicisation of unionised workers through the parallel socialist politicisation and organisation of those struggles. Here then, is the nexus of a political strategy that can potentially achieve what endless ideological debates, union Congress resolutions, limited worker strikes/marches, as well as the pre-figured formation of another political formation can never achieve.

What makes absolute strategic sense in relation to COSATU in particular, and organised workers generally, is for socialists to focus socialist political debate and catalyse practical class struggles at the very ‘point’ where the political connection of workers to the ANC/SACP is at its weakest and most vulnerable. Unlike the position that has been taken by many South African socialists, this should not be understood to simply mean that the key political task is to call for, and hasten, a COSATU break from the ANC/SACP in order to form a ‘workers party’. This approach plays right into the hands of the ANC/SACP, allowing them to successfully use the organisational appeal of historic loyalties and the political appeal of an unfinished – so called - national democratic revolution. It also mistakes political form for class content grounded in, and arising from, sustained mass, and implicitly anti-capitalist, struggles that represent a vanguard of the oppressed, not simply that of organised (and predominantly industrial) workers.

Rather, a more meaningful strategic approach does not hinge itself on whether COSATU does, or does not, break from the ANC/SACP - it begins to lay the political and organisational groundwork for a new form of socialist politics, whether a ‘workers party’ or otherwise. It does so by strategically linking the ongoing struggles of various layers of the ‘mass’ (in urban and/or rural working class communities etc.) with the struggles of organised workers (not simply COSATU), and in so doing, exposing the political sterility of the ANC/SACP. This can be a major step forward to a real and meaningful unity (as opposed to the present state of false unity based on spurious claims to a common ‘national democratic revolution’), both amongst and between organised workers and those struggling at the grassroots/community level.

Indeed, the basis for a meaningful unity amongst all organised workers and the broader working class must be sought through politically and organisationally uniting mass struggles centred on the most basic social and material demands where that working class is to be found and that encompasses the totality of their ‘exploitations’ (i.e. not simply in the workplace/factory etc). Unity is not going to be found through the continued attempt to harmonise political relations, ideological programmes, strategic understandings etc., in and amongst the existing organised expressions of that broad working class.

In reference to such a unity, socialists must also jettison what has been a very narrowly defined understanding of, and thus strategic approach to, who constitutes a ‘worker’. Workers are not confined to those who have formal employment (or, more specifically, who belong to a union), but also the millions of those who have worked in the ‘formal’ capitalist economy (whether that be as industrial and/or agricultural workers) and continue to work in the ‘informal’ survival economy (often erroneously classified as "unemployed", as if recognition of their work depends on ‘formal’ measurement). To this must also be added the hundreds of thousands of ‘domestic’ workers – not in the sense simply of those working for predominately white South African households, but all those - mainly woman - who are just as much workers (reproducing labour etc.) and who are not politically and organisationally treated as such.

There must also be put forward the absolute necessity of a strategic link between the revolutionary potential and power of those combined struggles (i.e., not pre-determined, pre-figured organisational forms that seek to capture that potential and power), to the forging of an organisational form that can, directly (organically so to speak), represent the political possibilities of extending ground-level struggles into the popular propagation of socialist demands on a broader, societal level. The more immediate ‘battle’ thus requires engaging in a battle of ideas, not merely through intellectual endeavor but through exposing the inherent weaknesses of present – or reworked - forms of ‘left’ political organisation (and this includes trade unionism) to act as the fulcrum for a renewed and relevant socialist politics. Simply put, the struggles of the broad working class can begin to act as the vanguard of a new, socialist political form, whatever the name.

In more overt programmatic terms, the basis for such a strategic approach should not be centered primarily around the need to provide electoral opposition, although this must always remain a tactical option to further expose the limitations of capitalist ‘democracy’ and politics. The point of charting a new socialist strategy as outlined above, is not to simply oppose the ANC/SACP on the electoral terrain that they now occupy in a still dominant but increasingly shaky position. Rather, it is to stake out that political and organisational terrain that they continue to ignore and take for granted – i.e., the mass of the broad working class in both urban and rural areas – as the grounding for a new organisational form with a socialist politics that has the potential to contest class power on its own terms.

Grasping the possible

The possibilities of rethinking and recasting socialist strategy as the necessary basis for the sustained presence of a mass-based socialist politics and organisational form, are directly linked to both the objective and subjective ‘conditions’ that pertain in South Africa. Presently, there is a sizeable ‘gap’ between what is objectively there in organisational terms (i.e., COSATU, SACP, various smaller socialist formations and grassroots/community groups etc.) and what the broad working class both think there can be, and want there to be. So far, what we have witnessed is that the political loyalties of the most organised workers to COSATU (and to the ANC/SACP alliance as an expression of past struggle and present political power) have uneasily triumphed over what workers themselves have expressed, in strike action and in political debate, as the lack of political and organisational progress of COSATU itself, the abject political realities of the alliance itself and the declining material ‘position’ of workers and the broader working class.

In South Africa, socialists must acknowledge the effects of an adolescent post-apartheid political economy and the ‘recovery’ period that socialists still find themselves in from the surge of imperialism and capitalist ‘reach’ of the past decade or so, applied both domestically and internationally. However, what we now have in South Africa is the serious intensification of materially based (but increasingly politicised) mass struggles centered around the demands for basic goods/services predominately directed at an ANC/SACP government which was put back into power by a sizeable electoral majority of organised workers/broad working class. There is confusion, there is critical questioning, there is increasing debate about class interests and struggle and, of course, there are serious doubts being raised about the efficacies of the political allegiance of organised workers and the broader working class to the Alliance. What this now provides is a collection of spaces for socialists to put forward a strategy that can capture the real possibilities of a mass-based, organised expression of a renewed socialist politics. This is eminently possible and practically feasible.

A socialist advance is to be found precisely in a politically qualitative and organisationally quantitative advancement of the very real struggles of the broad working class, not predominately in the intellectual and organisational capabilities of a select cadre. The advance can be extended by taking the idea of, and debate around, a new socialist political organisation (i.e.,a political party) directly into the heat of practical struggles taking place (and that are only going to get more intense). In this way, there becomes the possibility that organised workers and the broader working class itself, through their own self activity, combined with certain degrees of intellectual and activist 'push', can prepare the ground for what can be a truly meaningful 'break' for political independence. In other words, the objective conditions themselves are umbilically linked to the subjective will (and capacity) to sustain and intensify contemporary mass-based, anti-capitalist struggle. The political possibilities of socialist ideas and organisation emerge, not as a result of some sort of self-fulfilling agreement amongst a select few, but depend precisely on planting and nurturing a socialist ‘seed’ through such struggles.

In his 2002 State of the National address, South African President Mbeki gave a philosophical spin to his, and his government’s, commitment to a capitalist path by wryly noting that, "as we find our way into the future, we shall not seek solace in the past". Socialists would do well to take this to heart as the starting point for a completely different kind of commitment. Indeed, unless socialists believe that their politics should work towards the kind of political corporatism and completely opportunistic and misdirected vanguardism that the ANC/SACP have institutionalised, then we have to accept that socialist politics is inherently polemical under capitalism – it cannot be otherwise. Polemical in the sense that another political, another philosophical, pole must be established to provide the opportunities, the possibilities, for intensifying the myriad of class struggles that are taking place and translating the inherent power of these struggles into a political presence that can put forward a coherent and meaningful programme for a socialist South Africa.

Any serious socialist cannot but reject, with the contempt deserved, the philosophical, material and class basis for the capitalist political economy being pursued by the ANC/SACP. It is then the strategic responsibility of those socialists to work towards a political alternative that emanates from, and is grounded in, the struggles of the broad working class. Indeed, not to undertake this responsibility is to condemn class struggle in South Africa to the realm of mitigation. The main task is not to force the ANC/SACP to ‘review’ what it is they have now fully committed themselves towards. The struggles of the broad working class will continue to remain in the realm of defensive demand, unless and until those struggle are combined with a socialist political content (and inevitably also, a political form). This is the main strategic task of all socialists.


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